You asked for Connecticut's crime rate broken down by the race of the offender and victim, and the racial breakdown of the offenders who have been convicted for a third strike in California?

Based on information contained in the Uniform Crime Reports from 2000 to 2004, and in the U. S. Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (1/4/08), we were able to prepare estimates on the arrest rates for certain crimes broken down by race. This data indicates that the arrest rate for blacks for murder was 10 to 15 times as high as for whites, five to six times the rate for whites for sexual assault, eight to nine times as high for robbery, four to five times as high for aggravated assault, and between two to three times as high for burglary.

We did not find any incarceration rates for Connecticut prepared by any Connecticut agency or organization. But we were able to find relevant information for 2005 prepared by an organization called the Sentencing Project, a Washington D. C. based national non-profit organization involved in research and advocacy on criminal justice policy issues, and for 2006 from the U. S. Department of Justice (U. S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin Prisoners in 2006 December 2007, NCJ 219416. )

According to the Sentencing Project's website, the rate of incarceration for white Connecticut residents in 2005 was 211 per 100,000 people; for black residents it was 2,532 per 100,000. The Sentencing Project reports that the national incarceration rate for whites in 2005 was 412 per 100,000, and the rate for blacks was 2,290 per 100,000 people. http: //www. sentencingproject. org/Admin/Documents/publications/rd_stateratesofincbyraceandethnicity. pdf

Also according to the Sentencing Project's web site, in seven states (Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and South Dakota) the black to white incarceration ratio is greater than 10 to one. The national rate is 5. 6 to one and the ratios range from 13. 6 to one for Iowa to just under two to one in Hawaii. Connecticut's rate is about 12 to 1. The Project concluded that Connecticut's black to white ratio is so high because Connecticut's rate of white incarceration is very low whereas its rate for black incarceration is a little above the national average.

According to Justice Department data, in 2006 black men were being incarcerated at a rate of 3,042 per 100,000. This data also indicated that

1. about one in every 33 black men was a sentenced prisoner and the rate for white men was about one in every 205, for Hispanic men about one in every 79; and

2. black men represented the largest proportion of sentenced male inmates at yearend 2006 (38%); white men made up 34%; and Hispanic men, 21%.

We were not able to find any Connecticut crime victimization rates. But a Bureau of Justice Statistics report based on a national survey of households concluded that in 2005 the national victimization rate for crimes committed against the person for whites age 12 and older was 20. 9 per 100,000 people, while the victimization rate for blacks was 28. 7 per 100,000.

Blacks were victims of an estimated 805,000 non-fatal violent crimes and of about 8,000 homicides in 2005. While blacks accounted for 13% of the U. S. population in 2005, they were victims in 15% of all non-fatal violent crimes and nearly half of all homicides. These findings are based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime

Victimization Survey (NCVS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR), Supplementary Homicide Reports.

According to Department of Justice's analysis of national crime statistics, blacks have generally had a serious violent crime victimization rate of about twice that of whites for the past two decades. During 2005, for example, the black victimization rate for serious violent crime was 13. 6 compared to the rate for whites of 6. 5. (Serious violent crimes include homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. )

In 1994, California approved a major change in its criminal sentencing laws. This change has commonly been referred to as the “Three Strikes and You're Out” law. This law imposed longer prison sentences for certain repeat offenders, as well as instituted other changes. Under this law, if a person has one previous serious or violent felony conviction, the sentence for any new felony conviction (not just a serious or violent felony) is twice the term otherwise required by law. Offenders sentenced under this provision are often referred to as “second strikers. ” If a person has two or more previous serious or violent felony convictions, the sentence for any new felony conviction (not just a serious or violent felony) is life imprisonment with the minimum term of 25 years. Offenders convicted under this provision are frequently referred to as “third strikers” ( A Primer: Three Strikes- The Impact After More Than a Decade, prepared by Brian Brown and Greg Jalivette of the California legislature's Legislative Analyst's Office). We have enclosed a copy of this report, which may be accessed on the web at http: //www. threestrikes. org/3_strikes_102005. pdf

According to a 2004 report from the Justice Policy Institute, African Americans make up 6. 5% of California's population, nearly 30 % of the prison population, 36 % of second strikers, and 45% of third strikers (Racial Divide An Examination of the Impact of California's Three Strike Law on African-Americans and Latinos, by Scott Ehlers, Vincent Schiraldi, and Eric Lotke).

The following arrest data was taken from the annual reports of the Uniform Crime Reporting Program, State of Connecticut Department of Public Safety, Division of State Police, Crime Analysis Unit. The arrest rates were derived from applying this data to population data from the U. S. Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program (January 4, 2008).

We took the following two incarceration rate tables for each state directly from the Sentencing Project's web site.

Table 13: Prison & Jail Incarceration Rates, 2005

Rate of Incarceration per 100,000 Population

Source: The Sentencing Project Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity by Marc Mauer and Ryan S. King, July 2007

*Incarceration rates based on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005. New Mexico and Wyoming have been excluded due to lack of data on race and ethnicity.

Table 14: Prison & Jail Incarceration Rates, 2005, by Black-to-White Ratio Rate of Incarceration per 100,000 Population